


Taking the Long Way Around to Happily Ever After

by frogy



Series: The one where Chad's a porn star [1]
Category: High School Musical (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Porn, Future Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-18
Updated: 2012-03-18
Packaged: 2017-11-02 04:21:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/364920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frogy/pseuds/frogy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the club, a guy comes up to him, gives Chad his card, and tells him that he should be in porn. Chad thinks it's kind of weird and maybe a little creepy, but he puts the card in his pocket and says he'll think about it. </p><p>He forgets all about it until he finds the card again later. Again, he's not quite sure why he doesn't just throw it out. But he doesn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Taking the Long Way Around to Happily Ever After

**Author's Note:**

> Some people use porn AUs to write lots of improbable sex; I use it to write long-winded romance about a dude who just happens to be in porn. 
> 
> I like to think of this story as an abridged version of a sprawling epic universe that lives only in my head. If I were going to do this right, I'd want to do a lot more research about what it's like to be in porn and work in the porn industry. Instead, Chad's experiences are based off of bits and pieces of things I've seen or read over years on the internet.
> 
> What you're reading now only exists because I mentioned said universe to queenitsy, and she asked me to tell her more about it. She was then kind enough to beta it for me. Any remaining mistakes are entirely my fault.

Chad's never _not_ out in college. He moves in early for pre-season practices, into the sports dorm. There's a freshman football player, Greg, who lives at the other end of the hall who is incredibly hot and luckily for Chad, also gay. They spend the whole before-classes-start time hooking up incredibly unsubtly before deciding they make better best friends than anything else. 

Classes in college are okay, but Chad's mainly there for basketball. Basketball in college is okay, but he's no longer a star. He's friends with the guys on his team, but it's not like the Wildcats. His best friends aren't on the team. Even with all the new friends he's made, Troy is still his brother. So shortly after classes start Chad calls Troy up to tell him he's gay. It's still something he should know. Chad may lie and say he's dating Greg. He knows Troy will be cool with Chad being gay, but less so with him sleeping around. Troy is weirdly scary-serious about monogamous relationships.

Chad tells his parents he's gay over Christmas break. He waits until after Christmas. They're not thrilled, although Chad thinks it's more bewilderment than anything else.

\---

It's been blatantly obvious that Ryan is gay for longer than he'd like. The same could probably be said of half the people in his program at Julliard. Ryan's sure he could be dating in NY if he wanted to. But that's not what Ryan came to college for.

His revelation is a cultural one. 

For as cut-throat as the program is, there's a camaraderie there. When Ryan complains to his friends about the crazy director for this student production he's in some theater thing) they all groan in sympathy. And when their professor in Story through Dance talks about the in Sleep No More, Ryan spends a day with his friends volunteering to string up pearl necklaces (no pun intended) for discount tickets, even though if he asked, his parents would give him the money for a ticket. That's not the point.

\---

Shortly after Christmas break, Chad's in the lounge, going over powerpoints for classes he's missed while away for games while everyone else does similar when an email comes through. He's losing his scholarship. The email is kind enough to ensure him that it's due to no fault of his own. The economy is bad and the school's endowment is down and they cut a lot of athletic scholarships. The people at the financial aid office would be happy to talk through his options with him as his education is still important to them. And the whole thing is so awful that the only option is to snort at the ridiculousness of that statement.

His friends ask what's wrong so he explains. They offer words of consolation but there's really nothing they can do. But mostly they look at each other because there's nothing they can do and they don't envy Chad the position (and also they wonder who else is on the chopping block, which of their friends and teammates).

And then something seems to occur to him. What is he going to tell his parents? Shit. They can't take any more disappointment from him.

Chad's not going to get any work done now.

Greg suggests they go out that night.

So they do. Greg was right. Chad needed a night off to drink and dance and hook up. (It turns out that he likes dancing when it's more sex while clothed than jazz hands. Someone should have told him that in HS. Although on second thought, in HS that would have scared him just as much as the jazz hands.) He already feels better with a drink in him and a blond to dance with, even if it's not going anywhere and he's going back to the bar.

At the club, a guy comes up to him, gives Chad his card, and tells him that he should be in porn. Chad thinks it's kind of weird and maybe a little creepy, but he puts the card in his pocket and says he'll think about it. 

He forgets all about it until he finds the card again later. Again, he's not quite sure why he doesn't just throw it out. But he doesn't. Instead, he checks out the guy's website and does some digging around on the internet. It seems legit. So he gives the guy a call. Pretty much every step of the way he thinks he's about to drop it. 

But he doesn't. Every step of the way people are nice and honest and cool about the whole thing. It would solve his money problems. And then all of a sudden he's having a friend's sister who's in law school look over the contract before he signs and going out to California for the week of spring break to be in porn.

The movie comes out during finals week so Chad's almost too busy to notice. While he was out there filming he did some promo shots and filled out a questionnaire for their website that felt more like a dating service than a porn site, not that Chad's on a dating site because he's not really interested in dating and he has no problems hooking up without it. So whatever "introduction" they do for him online happens by some guys in an office back in California, and the lead up and promo for the new guy happens similarly without him. 

\---

Ryan and Chad are facebook friends who haven't spoken since they left East High. When Ryan sees the porn Chad's in, he pulls up Chad's Facebook profile and texts a couple of friends to come over and tell him if he's crazy or not but he's pretty sure this guy he went to HS with is doing gay porn now.

They pile into his dorm room to see this. They all agree that the porn is hot, but it's inconclusive as to whether it's the same guy in the Facebook profile that Ryan's showing them. It's not like there's a lot of close-ups on his face. If there were any proof that Chad were gay it would help but his Facebook profile doesn't say one way or another. If it is Chad, Ryan is going to get so much shit from his friends for not hooking up with him when they were in school.

In the end, their parting advice before going back to studying, practicing, and sleeping respectively is to send him a message and ask. If they don't talk now, the worst that could happen is they could keep on exactly as they have been.

It takes Ryan weeks of dithering about it to take their advice.

\---

After his last final, Chad sleeps, goes out to drinking with his friends, and sleeps some more. On the fourth day he wakes up and realized the dorms close for the summer in 12 hours and he needs to get all his stuff out of there and home for the summer and oh shit he is not packed at all. He gets a phone call about halfway through packing and he picks up without looking.

It's the porn guys. They're calling to say that Chad's movie is selling well (it's all download numbers and streaming stats that mean nothing to him) and it's been reviewed on Banana Guide called you "the next big thing (and we mean big)." They want him to come out to LA to shoot more. 

Chad's original contract was for one video with the option for them to pick up two more, and they're picking them up. Chad doesn't have anything planned for the summer between now and when basketball starts up again, so they tentatively plan for him to spend July out there filming. Chad's sure everything is fine, but he wants his law student (but he says 'lawyer' on the phone) to look at everything before confirming. 

He has the whole conversation with the awkwardly shrugging to hold the phone between his ear and shoulder so he can keep packing. When they're about to hang up, the guy says that they really want to work with him again.

Chad agrees immediately, says that he really want to do more work with them. He didn't know it was true until he said it, but there it is. To porn he goes.

\---

Ryan spends his summer in NY. He moves from the dorm to an apartment. He's got a part in a black-box theater show that his friend is producing and he signs up to do cabaret at one of his favorite bars. He takes dance classes and yoga and camps out for Shakespeare in the Park. Sharpay comes out to New York for July 4th weekend to visit. She tells Ryan she's leaving school. She got an agent and is going to move to LA and try acting for real. She hasn't told their parents yet, he's the first to know. Ryan spends the two weeks in August before classes start with his family, first back home in Albuquerque and then helping Sharpay move. Their parents are fine with paying for her to try this whole acting thing, but they have vacation plans so she'll have to do the move without them.

\---

Chad spends a month of his summer filming porn. The first thing he does in LA doesn't involve having sex on camera. Instead, his first evening in LA is spent answering questions from fans live on the internet. And it's super weird that he has fans, but he's happy to talk about what made him want to do porn ("it pays for college") and what's it like ("fun") and you're totally gay, right, because you seem so butch ("I only want to sleep with guys, so yes, but if it helps, I was in a musical once"). At the end, he announces his upcoming films and gives a plug that they all check out his current one and some other titles the studio gave him to talk about, which was the real point of the whole thing. 

The next day the work starts, although Chad can barely call it work. Being a porn star is awesome. The guy he lives with has been doing it full time for a year and knows all the best parties, has all the best friends, and is always up for a good time. Chad's 19 but he can get a drink at all the hottest club and he's being paid good money to have sex all day.

Troy comes out to visit for a weekend. Troy's not the one that's weird with it. The guys Chad's living with can't figure out what to do with a straight guy in their midst even though all Troy wants to do is mope around the apartment with Chad. Gabi's decided they should take a break. After being really serious about their relationship all through high school she's decided college is the time to try new things and Troy's not handling it well. 

Right before he heads back he gets a Facebook message from Ryan asking in a very roundabout, apologetic way if he maybe, possibly saw Chad in this porn movie. It's funny. If someone asked him if Ryan was gay, he would say yes. But he never carried the thought through, that if Ryan is gay he probably watches gay porn, and now that Chad's in gay porn Ryan might see it. It's kind of cool that someone he knows has, in a vague, roundabout way, complimented his work. So he sends a message back.

\---

And then Chad goes back to college. It's lost some of its shine after LA, especially when LA doesn't want to let him go. He spends his fall break there filming. And then basketball season starts. He's still not going anywhere with basketball. He's about a foot too short to really be a star in that arena now.

He gets an offer to do a weekend shoot and it works with his schedule, so he goes. But it sets a precedent. Now Chad's spending most weekends out in LA. Sometimes it's a 24-hour turn around, Saturday overnight on a bus to get out there, filming Sunday, Sunday night out partying with the guys, and then straight from the club getting on a bus back to his life by Monday morning.

One night his co-star, an older guy who he's never worked with, Koby Fisher, stops him on his way out and asks him to grab dinner. They go for Indian, and while devouring an order of naan the guys tells Chad that his lifestyle is unsustainable. Chad does a double take; who's this stranger criticizing his life? But the guy stops Chad before he can get too worked, up explaining that Chad's good. Chad knew that already. By this point he's done enough shoots with enough people that he's seen people come in for one shoot do a mediocre job, and not be invited back. The guy tells Chad that he could make a career out of this. But not if he's running himself ragged with the travel and the party. If he wants to do this for real, Chad should move to LA.

At the end of his Sophomore year, Chad moves to LA. His parents are confused. Chad never told him exactly what he was doing there over the summer but a month isn't throwing his future away, and now he wants to drop out of school to do who knows what? Chad tells them that the opportunity is too good to pass up, that he's working in an up-and-coming streaming video company confident in the knowledge that they can use email and his dad can check sports scores on ESPN.com, but they're not web-savvy enough to understand up-and-coming anything. And anyway, his credits will transfer to a school in LA where he can take night classes and finish up his degree that way. 

He hadn't actually looked into transferring, but the lie sounds good so when Troy, on a high from Gabi finally taking him back, gives him shit about ditching school, he follows through on it. By the fall he's enrolled in three classes. He _still_ has a million more years of school to get his degree at this pace, but it helps give his days structure.

Koby helps Chad set up a website. Since he finished his first contract he's not tied exclusively anywhere, which is good because even the most prolific porn house only has so much work for one person. He's hasn't filmed with anyone else yet, but he's been evaluating offers (with his lawyer, who's finally finished law school and is waiting to get her bar results, Chad sends her a 'Seriously, calm the fuck down, you're awesome and going to kill the test' fruit basket during the height of her exam panic). He's also started doing appearance gigs. There are a lot of clubs who are willing to pay to have a porn star partying at them.

\---

Ryan is in his junior year at Julliard and could seriously use a 'calm the fuck down' fruit basket. His life is consumed by rehearsal, rehearsal, rehearsal, write a paper, audition, choreograph, rehearsal. He's too busy to celebrate his 21st in the manner it deserves. But after his routine has the occasional clubbing peppered between all the rehearsals.

\---

Chad goes clubbing most weekends. Slowly but surely that becomes work more often than not. 

He does one film with a different studio that goes fine. Then he does one with a studio that mainly uses gay-for-pay actors that goes less fine. The other guys he's working with are total douches and there's just a bad vibe on set.

After that he's a little gun-shy about taking offers from other places. Instead he spends a lot of time talking to all those blogs that raved about his film when he started. He does some email Q&As or if people are local meeting up in coffee shops to talk. He's a guest on some web shows. He does a few more shoots with the studio. 

They send him to Vegas for a porn convention and then to New York for Pride a few weeks later.

It's the first time Chad's going to New York and when he finds out about it, he posts that about it on his real Facebook (it also gets listed as an appearance on his fan page, by now he has a fan page for his porn work too). Ryan likes the status later that night, and leaves a comment asking when. They're not close enough that it's a given that they'll see each other, but they're also not strangers. 

They've keep in touch via Facebook statuses and sometimes private messages when Ryan catches one of Chad's films or interviews and he wants to say good work somewhere friends and family won't see it ever since that first message. It's not that Ryan is following Chad's career because that would be weird. But Chad is exactly Ryan's type so sometimes he just stumbles across Chad's work totally unintentionally. 

And anyway, Ryan's been over his crush on Chad for longer than Chad's been gay (although Chad would say that's totally not true, he's always been gay, he just didn't know it at the time. Chad's crush on Ryan went totally unacknowledged, Chad never putting together what that itch under his skin was).

They comment back and forth about New York to the point where it becomes a given that they'll hang out even though neither of them have said it. It's Ryan that finally mentions it, asking if Chad will have any time for Ryan to show him around. Even with Chad cutting back, Ryan's not nearly as much of a partier (it comes part and parcel with a double major in which your body is a temple) but he's a newly 21-year-old college junior and it's Pride and there are so many bars Ryan wants to take Chad to (and if Chad's really never been to New York, Ryan's even willing to brave Time Square so he can see it, and they should go to Central Park, and Chad absolutely has to have pizza while he's here, and bagels, oh god the bagels). Chad's weekend is jam packed with work obligations, but all his drinks are comp'ed when he does appearances, so he invites Ryan and his friends out with him Friday night. Ryan meets Chad at his hotel with three friends from school and a bottle of Jack for some pre-gaming. Chad rounds up Sean and Jason who are staying next door and his roommate, Rob, and they do shots until it's time to head to the club. 

Ryan orders a cosmo at the bar, and Chad laughs at him playing into stereotypes after doing shots of Jack back at the hotel. Ryan gives Chad's beer the bitchiest look, and Chad just laughs harder. Chad's the one that pulls Ryan out to the dance floor with him. 

They don't spend the whole night dancing together. Chad is contractually obligated to dance and flirt and chat with the full range of bar patrons, but they keep coming back to one another, Ryan sliding in next to Chad at the bar to get another drink on his tab, or Chad crowding into Ryan on the dance floor to kiss him hard and fast under a shower of glitter before spinning away again. When it's closer to the next morning than the night before they find each other and hail a taxi back to Ryan's place.

Having sex for fun is always different than having sex for work. There's no timetable or camera angles to work. Chad can crowd Ryan against the door and kiss him for deep and slow until Ryan is grinding up against him with a desperate edge to his movements. Chad pulls away only to tell Ryan how good he tastes, and Ryan snarks back that he's not laughing at the cosmos now, still giving Chad shit with his breath shuddering, eyes wide and face flushed. Chad runs his hands up Ryan's shirt under, and Ryan shudders, squirming away. 

Chad grins at Ryan being ticklish like he's just discovered the greatest secret in the world, even as Ryan dances out of Chad's reach, denying it. They fall into bed breathless from laughing, play fighting for dominance, relishing the touch of their bodies in the tussle until they're breathless for other reasons.

Chad wakes Ryan up too early in the morning demanding a cup of coffee before he has to leave even before he gets a look at the complicated espresso machine dominating the counter space in the kitchenette that he'd never be able to operate without help.

There's the parade that day, bright and festive, and then another night out at a club with dinner in between with some people from another studio. Chad's thinking about calling it a night when he gets a text from Ryan about getting food, so Chad meets Ryan and his friends for Pomme Frites before going back to Ryan's for the night. 

Ryan wakes Chad up the next morning because there's a pilates class at the gym that he likes Sunday morning, so Chad gets up and joins Ryan at the gym on his guest pass. His flight's late that afternoon, so they get the coveted bagels after (totally negating their work at the gym. Ryan only eats them on special occasions, like when there are out of town guests).

Ryan rides the subway out to the air train to say goodbye to Chad. When Chad gets in, he texts Ryan to let him know he got home safely.

\---

Chad keeps working and going to school. He adds a blog to his website because he likes doing publicity on other people's blogs, but it would be great to be able to have all of his stuff in one place. He gets a twitter account too, even though he thinks it's pretty stupid. There's already plenty of other places where he talks about his work. But it turns out that people really want to know what he has for breakfast or when he thinks Jon Stewart is hilarious and he's not going to stop them. In a weird way it's nice to be validated as a person and not just a body.

And that opens the door to more appearances. People want to hear from him. And, life is good. He and Ryan talk and text. They're not dating. That would be ridiculous. They live on opposite coasts and Chad has sex with people for a living. But whenever one of them is in the other's city for work (Chad) or just for the hell of it (Ryan, where 'just for the hell of it usually means that Sharpay has insisted he come meet her newest new boyfriend) they'll hook up. 

\---

Ryan graduates and starts a cycle of never-ending auditions.

\---

Chad's blog gets more and more traffic and his twitter following grows. He gets more and more not-specifically-porn related gigs to make appearances at things. 

\---

Ryan gets a part in a chorus on Broadway, as a replacement after one of the people who were in the show when it opened leaves. It's a big deal after a lot of nothing and a couple of small off-off-off-Broadway parts. 

Chad flies out for Ryan's debut. He didn't account for Mr. and Mrs. Evans and Sharpay to be there. He does to dinner with them for lack of anything else to do while Ryan's working and he feels out of place. This is a boyfriendly thing to do, but they're not boyfriends. Chad stays at his hotel instead of in Ryan's bed because Sharpay has pulled him out for girl-time after after-show drinks that Ryan laughingly protests, but Chad isn't going to take him away from his family. Ryan insists that Chad come for breakfast the next morning but hanging out with his family isn't any less weird when Ryan's there.

Ryan doesn't say anything about it, but he must feel it too because they talk less when Chad goes home. It could just be Ryan's new job, but Chad doesn't think so.

But it's not like he dwells on it. 

Chad gets invited to talk at a community center. There are children in the audience (okay, high school students, and he's been informed that they needed signed permission slips to attend, but damn they look young) and he's billed as an internet personality for the first time. He's there with a lady from the local PFLAG and a dude from the Gay Men's Health Center and there are actually more sex-related questions from the audience that there are at most of his porn-related engagements, if only because there he's confident at the porn-related gigs that everyone in the audience has had sex and here it's a lot of awkward 'but what about...?' that they're maybe thinking of trying for the first time, to which Chad can mostly only say "as long as it's consensual and as you're safe." He's not particularly sure any of his advice is worth anything but afterwards, one of the organization people tell Chad he was great, and if he ever feels like doing some volunteer work they'd love to have him.

It doesn't even occur to Chad how long it's been since he's talked to Ryan until he's going to NY for something or other. He sends Ryan a text letting him know he'll be in town and gets a phone call back immediately. There's something Ryan's hemming and hawing around, and when he finally spits it out, it's that he has a boyfriend, a guy who's a friend of a friend that works in midtown. They haven't been dating long, but long enough that it's a boyfriend and not just some guy that he's not seriously seeing, and he hopes Chad's okay with it and that they can still be friends and that it won't be weird. Chad says it's fine because it is. Mostly. Sort of. He wants Ryan to be happy and if he is that's all that matters. 

Life keeps happening. Chad goes on some dates, but nothing really comes of it. He finally finishes school. He continues to do more and more work with the Center, speaking gigs and educational outreach, and fundraising gigs. He'll still go in for a porn shoot when a really good offer comes through but he's doing less and less of it. And that summer he's the best man in Troy and Gabriella's wedding.

\---

Ryan's with the boyfriend for just under a year when the boyfriend's job transfers him to Chicago. Ryan would go but he's on Broadway. That's not a job he's willing leave for any reason. They talk about trying long-distance but decide it would be unfair to both of them so they break up. 

Now that Ryan's not busy with a relationship he finds he has more spare time than he knows what to do with. He spends the first little while moping, but there's only so long he can take moping, even when it's his own. He finds that he wants to bitch about the whole thing to Chad, who he hasn't talked to for a while. It's not that they actively stopped talking, Ryan was just busy, had other things going on in his life, and he knows Chad's always that busy too. So, Ryan calls him.

So much of their earlier friendship was drunk cross-continental hookups and amusing texts about the xylophone player dressed as a skunk in the subway (Ryan) or a club appearance with a sad lack of cocks to go with the cocktails (Chad) or the ridiculous diva antics of a co-star (both). But now they talk. Chad tells Ryan all about the wedding and what the guys they went to school with are up to. Ryan tells Chad about the Knicks game he saw with some co-workers. Most of the people he was with were there to support the star of their show, who was singing the national anthem. They were all shocked with Ryan got into the game, but it brought him back to his mascot days, and he was screaming his head off. Chad recently saw some play, and they talk about that, and then how Ryan's show and how Chad's speaking gigs are going and the re-design he's working on for his site.

When Ryan looks up at a clock he's stunned to realize they've been talking for hours. Ryan has to go, but he says he'll call again soon.

That's how Chad and Ryan start talking again.

\---

The show Ryan is in is closing. He's offered a role in the touring version of his show so he goes on the road for a year. It's a circus and there's no escaping it, stuck living with his coworkers in cities where he knows no one. So he takes to calling Chad even more. 

Chad is always happy to hear from Ryan.

Somewhere in the intervening years they've become one of each other's best and oldest friends bordering on more. 

They talk about it once, after a Sunday morning where the last remaining single guy in Chad's drunk-brunch group brings a boyfriend and a clusterfuck of a Sunday afternoon matinee for Ryan where half the cast is sick with some type of sinus thing and it's an understudy mess all over the place. Ryan's lying in his hotel bed, when he says it, that he wishes Chad were, there, that he could reach out and touch him. Chad tells Ryan that he'd love brunch, if only they lived in the same place. But if wishes were fishes... Ryan snorts, asks what the fuck that means and Chad admits he has no idea. It's something his mom always said.

When Ryan's tour ends, he's back on the audition circuit and he'd forgotten how much it sucks. New York doesn't have the same shine now as it did at 18. It's cold and grey and slushy. There's auditions for a show in LA and Ryan goes. He and Chad are still talking all the time so Chad knows Ryan's in his town. But Ryan doesn't tell him why. He glosses over it when they talk, saying he's just there for this thing, that it's not important. That's a lie. It could be the most important thing, but Ryan doesn't want to say anything until he knows. 

Instead he swallows his nerves when Chad meets him at the airport, even though Ryan's renting a car for while he's out there. He follows Chad in the rental back to Chad's place. Chad's moved since Ryan's visited him, into a nice place with a spare room. Ryan leaves his stuff in Chad's room.

They go to dinner after dropping off Ryan's stuff. The weather's beautiful and when the maitre'd asks if they want to sit outside Ryan jumps to say yes. He can feel the sunshine settling into his bones, and he wants this so much.

Auditions start the next day, with rounds of singing and acting and dancing. He thinks it goes well, but you never know with these things. Since he's in no rush back to New York he stays through the weekend. He ditches Chad for dinner on Friday to catch up Sharpay, whose newest new boyfriend, Clint, isn't new anymore, and Sharpay tells Ryan that Clint wants her to move in with him. Saturday there are drinks with some of Chad's porn friends. Sunday brunch is all people from the Center, where Chad's finally on payroll. Ryan and Chad are seated next to each other, and even when Chad gets caught up in a debate with Bruce to his right about and Ryan's having a separate conversation with Jeri to his left, Chad leaves his arm resting along the back of Ryan's chair, their legs crossed in to one another. 

Ryan gets the part. He gets off the phone with the director, and it's like he's filled with helium, about to float away in excitement. He can't wait to call Chad and let him know the good news. And then he deflates. Waiting to tell him was clearly a terrible idea. What if he doesn't want Ryan there? What if he's happy for them to just be a once in a while thing? 

Of course Ryan's worries are for naught. Chad is thrilled and indignant that Ryan didn't tell him beforehand because of course he wants Ryan there and Ryan didn't need to be worrying by himself and did he mention this is great and does Ryan need a place to stay because Chad has an awesome apartment and he's totally welcome there any time.

Ryan laughs at Chad's enthusiasm, letting the floating feeling return because this is really happening. He says that, that they can finally do it right, date for real. 

Ryan refuses to move into Chad's place. What if they can't stand each other once they're in the same place? Chad thinks Ryan's worries are ridiculous, but that doesn't stop him from helping Ryan go apartment hunting.

Chad's right of course. They're great together. Chad brings flowers to the opening night of Ryan's show and brings Ryan as his date to a fundraiser. Ryan hates LA traffic but loves the sunshine. Chad wakes up far too early on Saturday mornings when he stays at Ryan's because he goes to Krav Maga weekend mornings. When Ryan stays at Chad's on Sunday nights he's never happy with the hat he's packed for his Monday outfit. Sharpay throws Ryan a surprise party for his birthday at some fancy club. They fly up to Seattle together that summer when Gabi gives birth to her and Troy's first child. Ryan's already bought the kid a dozen outfits; Chad a stuffed basketball. When Ryan's lease is up, he finally concedes to Chad and moves in with him. It's the easiest thing he's ever done.

Chad knows there's no such thing as happily ever after, the idea that one right decision will make the rest of your life is a Hollywood invention. Life is a constant series of opportunities and decisions, small annoyances and disappointments, lucky moments and things you work really damn hard for and totally unexpected fucking awesome surprises. It's life and it's whatever you make of it.

Ryan knows he's found his happily ever after.


End file.
